ByTerry Woster
Today at 9:58 AM
I’m old enough to remember when computers were going to save humans so much time, they would be able to accomplish all tasks necessary for a meaningful career and still have countless hours to relax, play and contemplate the meaning of life
It hasn’t really worked out that way, not for a lot of people. Advances in technology bring along their own Janus, the two-faced Roman god of beginnings, transitions, time and endings. Much good has come of technology, but for people I know, it hasn’t really taken away their work or given them more time to live, to simply “be.’’
I got my first experience with computers, high-speed communications and networking, back in the age of the Commodore 64 and the desk-sized — not desk top, but the size of a desk — terminals The Associated Press introduced to its news writing and delivery system. We called the terminals “the CRT,’’ which stood for cathode ray tube or something. They replaced old, black, clattering teletype machines
The teletypes we used in the Pierre bureau when I started work with the AP in late 1969 delivered news at 66 words per minute. It had been kind of a big deal when the wire service made a gear change that sped up the delivery from 60 words a minute. Wow, kids. Think of it. Six more words a minute. And the teletype in the Pierre bureau had a stamp on the underside of the base that read something like “Fungus treated, 1945.’’
When the wire service phased out the teletypes, I talked the guy who came for the one in the bureau into letting me keep it. It sat on my front porch for years and years, kind of greasy and outdated but maybe, too, a symbol of the steady, durable power of news communications
The teletype, noisy thing that it was, ran all day and all night, and still editors had to make choices throughout their shifts about which news items would make the news wire and wouldn’t. it was based on hours in a day and a general assessment of the relative importance of the various pieces of news. We called the stories that made the cut “wire worthy.’’ Eventually, the AP went to high speed, and maybe super speed, and a lot more stuff hit the wire. It wasn’t as never-ending as communication is today, but it opened several flood gates along the line.
I was told at some point, I can’t remember exactly when, that developments in computers and high-tech communications would free me — and everyone else in the working world — to fish and travel and read and think and climb to the highest mountain to sit at the foot of the oracle. It seemed like magic to me. I had this one friend, a computer genius early in the movement, who called computers “idiot boxes.’’ They do nothing except what a human tells them to do, he said. These days, I have read, the technology called artificial intelligence, is growing ever-more capable of doing much more than humans tell it to do. That worries me, but I don’t see anyone thinking of turning back the clock.
In a post-July 4 mood to consider the human condition, I asked a search engine what happened to the promise of free time through technology. Whatever it is that fields such questions deep in the lower levels of my laptop told me this: “The promise of effortless leisure got traded for a hyper-blur. Instead of working fewer hours, technology has dissolved the boundaries between work and personal time, leaving us managing constant notifications and software tools instead of actually saving time.’’
While I considered that, I received a notification that I should prepare for my annual health wellness checkup. I opened the message to see how to prepare. I learned that I am supposed to download a file that contains my lab orders. I am to print it and bring it to my appointment, delivering it to the check-in desk at the lab
Time was, I would present myself at the check-in desk and the orders would be waiting. Then technology took another step forward
By
Terry Woster
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